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Red Green Show: TV personality to host fundraiser show

If you like watching "The Red Green Show," the longest running Canadian television series, you will love his new book, "How To Do Everything: From the Man Who Should Know: Red Green. The red flyleaves of the book each hold a piece of gray duct tape for authenticity for everyone knows that Red uses duct tape for just about any project or problem he encounters.

The creator of the series and the character, Steve Smith, is a comedian and writer by trade but is best known for his show which is a scripted comedy. Red Green, because he wears one red suspender and one green suspender, will be appearing in Bemidji in a fund raiser for Lakeland Public TV on April 3. If you don't have a ticket by now, you're too late for the show is completely sold-out.

After that bit of news (sold-out show), it's back to the book which is a compilation of many of the shows already seen on his series plus some new chuckles thrown in for good measure. It's silly and pokes fun at men: manly men, handymen, married men and woodsmen to name just a few of the chapters. For example, there is a segment in the book on what to do with your fitness equipment. Smith suggests that selling the equipment in garage sales is impossible because neighbors have the same stuff to get rid of (sell). Green suggests that the exercise bike could be moved to the side of your desk and then poke letter paper, envelopes and greeting cards between the spokes and "you've converted a stationary bike into a stationery bike." Got it?

The book is filled with drawings by Smith to further explain his solutions to everyday problems. One page 88, he shows how the bike would look festooned with stationery. There is also a cartoon of what to do with your treadmill; turn it into an automatic cleaning machine by hooking it up to your sink (after removing the handrails). Turn the contraption on at night and the day's accumulation of dirty dishes will move from sink to garbage while you go to bed. Or if that doesn't suit your needs, mount the treadmill vertically and glue your favorite velvet paintings on the belt. As Green wrote, "Now you can just run the treadmill to find the exact painting that suits your mood on any particular day."

You get the idea by now that Smith's latest publication is just a way for readers to have a good laugh at someone else's ineptness or a clever solution to everyday chores. For those who know the television series, the lodge is chuck full of useless stuff which Red Green redeploys -using the military term for innovation.

For those looking to purchase a present for their significant others, the first chapter in the book is "How to survive the seven stages of marriage: denial, guilt, anger, depression, the upward turn, reconstruction, acceptance." It's written by and for men, but women might also benefit from reading such sage advice.

The book is published as a Doubleday Canada hardcover and Smith is taking it on the road with his "Red Green's Wit & Wisdom Tour." Copies are expected to be available for purchase at the show on April 3. He'll probably sign them as well for the buzz is that he is, in person, a very nice and reasonable man.